It's Good to Have You Back
by Kgirl1
Summary: Set between season two and three. Not intended as a five times fic, but could be read as one.


**A/N: As if the world needed another post-Malachor angst-fest. Here's one anyway.**

* * *

She's with him in the medbay every day, in the aftermath of Malachor. Every bandage dressing, every checkup. The spare cot in his room has her imprint on it.

(Sometimes, although nobody says anything, his cot does too.)

She helps him with everything, even though the meddroids tell her he's supposed to be learning for himself, but how can she not jump to his aid, when he can't quite get that spoonful of soup to his mouth, or his hair tie isn't lined up with the center of his back?

She forgets her rebellion duties for the first time in—well, since she joined. Ezra and Sabine cross her mind, but only fleetingly. The _Ghost_ is in the worst shape it's ever been (still tip-top, of course—it is her ship after all—but dozens of daily tune-ups are long overdue).

For those first few weeks, it's just him and her. Kanan and Hera. There are the routine visits of the med droid, the sporadic rebellion operative, the occasional crew member or Specter dropping by, but at the end of the day, it's just them. And it's still painful, but there's something simple about it, something beautiful that reminds them both of their early days together.

And then, he's released from the medbay.

Being back on the _Ghost_ rocks the peaceful bubble they've built. Suddenly, he's frustrated—not confined to the safety of a cot all day, in a place that he's supposed to know like the back of his hand but is suddenly catching his feet on. She's stressed too—those overdue tune-ups have caught up with her ship, and it's harder to ignore missions and briefings when they're being downloaded right to your dashboard.

(It doesn't help that all of their meals were provided when they were in the medbay, and their return to the _Ghost_ is a painful reminder that she can't cook for bantha poodoo.)

She takes care of him the best she can—tracking the bandage changes, keeping him company, guiding him around the ship. Sneaking meals out of the commissary even though they've been blatantly told not to do that (but she's a commanding officer, so it's fine, right?).

But one day he stops her. She's just finished swapping the dressing around his eyes—can still feel the antiseptic gel, cool on her thumb—when he reaches up. His fingers curl around her wrist, gently, but with a heaviness to them that instantly makes her ache.

"Hera," he says, and a chill goes down her back. Her name has always sounded like a blessing on his lips—now he speaks it like a sentence.

"Yes, love?" It catches in her throat.

"I…" He swallows. "I have to do this on my own, now."

A crinkle writes itself across her brow. "Your bandages?"

"No, not…" He's speaking like he hasn't quite found the words himself, and he shakes his head. "Not the bandages. Everything." He lets her go. "This is something I have to work through on my own."

She realizes she's holding her breath. "Okay."

He bows his head, runs a hand through his hair. There's pain on his face, but she must be imagining it, because he took his symoxin just two hours ago, right on schedule—

"I'm grateful, Hera. For everything that you've done for me," he's saying. "I hope you know that." She tunes back in. "I know how much you've given up, being here."

Words of protest jump to her lips—nothing is more important than he is—but he cuts her off.

"But we both know it can't be like this forever."

Sorrow blooms through her, and she reaches around his shoulder and cards her fingers through his hair.

"I like being like this," she says.

"Hera." His voice is raw. He pulls her hand away, holds it in his own. "I can't hide away like this anymore. I have to learn how to make this…" he gestures around them with his free hand, then back to himself, "My life."

She furrows her brow. "Kanan, you don't have to do that on your own."

He breathes in a sigh and lets it out like it's weighted. "I know I do."

Hera watches him and feels tears sting her eyes.

"Hera, don't—"

"I'm not," she lies, and scrubs at her cheeks with her sleeve. He watches her solemnly, the corners of his lips downturned, until she's caught her composure.

"I just… I don't want you to get lost," she finally says, when she feels steady enough to speak.

His eyebrow quirks, a fraction of a centimeter.

"Is that a blind joke?"

The atmosphere is heavy, but the wry note in his voice is unmistakable.

"No." She's so shocked that a laugh escapes her, but there's no humor in it. She catches her composure. "No, Kanan, lost in… in yourself. In your darkness," she says, and she knows he knows what she's talking about.

Any humor is sucked out of the air, and she sighs, and reaches up to cradle his cheek.

"I just don't want you to feel like you're on your own."

He places his hand over hers. Sorrow thrums between them, and his voice is soft. "I always find my way back to you."

It's true, but it doesn't make her feel any better.

* * *

They're both varying degrees of miserable, in the weeks that follow. She throws herself into her work, as it's the only coping mechanism she knows, and it works for a while. On the surface.

But the time goes on, and the weeks turn into months, and she starts to feel like she doesn't know him anymore. His beard's grown—she'd been taking care of it, back when she was allowed to take care of him—and his hair is longer. On the rare occasions she sees him walking around the base or on the _Ghost_ , she notices he's figured out how to center the tail on his back, and her throat tightens up every time, because it feels like his way of telling her he doesn't need her.

Deep down, she knows it's not true, but she can't scrape past the layers of doubt that have encysted that knowledge, like nacre around a pearl.

He spends a lot of time in the desert; that much she knows, by the sand that flecks his clothing and gets tracked into the _Ghost_. Often she sees him meditating in the distance, but she knows better than to disturb him.

The door to his cabin stays closed.

At first, she tried asking Ezra—they could almost make a game out of it, guessing Kanan's location—but now it just makes them both sad. She tries to talk to him about other things, but he's spending lots of time in his room as well.

She feels her family starting to unravel, each of their threads taking with it a piece of her heart.

* * *

In those lonely months, they pass like celestial bodies, orbiting around each other but never colliding. She bumps into him in the corridor once—literally, as she's carrying a stack of crates so tall she can't see—and she curses herself, because he probably thinks it's his fault.

"Sorry," she says.

"It's okay."

They both stand there. She's frozen, mostly because this is the closest she's been to him in weeks. She can just barely make out that tiny scar above his lip, can just catch a trace of his scent. Her knees feel weak, and it's not from the cargo.

"Do you need any help with those crates?"

His voice brings her back to reality. She's surprised and impressed that he knows what she's carrying, and her heart twinges with hope.

"No, thank you, I've… I've got them," she says. "You, um, seem like you're doing well."

He gives half a nod.

"You?"

She can't muster the same ambivalence.

"I'm alright," she lies, and it's one of the few and only times she's grateful he can't see her.

He nods. Then he reaches down, so quickly she almost misses it, and squeezes her hand.

"I'll see you later."

Warmth floods her body, surging from the point of contact, and she's frozen, watching him go.

* * *

She's running diagnostics in the cockpit when she sees him next.

His fingers brush the back of her chair as he enters, so close to her shoulder but not quite. "Am I disturbing you?"

"No," she shakes her head, "Of course not." She tries to hide her elation when he takes the co-pilot's chair. They haven't sat like this in months, and she's so busy pretending not to watch him from the corner of her eye that she forgets her work for a moment. He's still, his shoulders upright, regal and calm, and it floods her with memories, of countless moments, midnights and missions when they've sat like this.

She realizes that she's staring outright, and clears her throat.

"What, um… what are you up to?"

"I have to practice seeing what's both inside and outside the ship," he says. "This is a good place to do it."

"Mm," she says. "Well, don't mind me."

For a while, there's companionable silence, and it makes her realize how much she's missed this. She completes a few cycles of diagnostics and is just starting to consider asking him to join her in the commissary when he places his palms on his knees.

"Well," Kanan says, standing up, "I won't keep you."

 _Please do,_ she wants to say, but she just watches him walk away.

* * *

The next time they touch, she doesn't even see him coming—she's been up for twenty hours straight. She's on her back working under the _Ghost's_ dashboard, and she hears the footsteps before she realizes they're his.

"Zeb, I'm going to bed right after this, I swear," she says, mopping her brow.

"It's me."

She jerks up so fast that she bangs her head on the durasteel and mutters a curse word she hopes he doesn't hear but knows he probably does. He sits down on the floor and holds a mug out to her; it's steaming with the scent of caf made only the way he can, and her mouth waters.

"I heard you tinkering," he says as she sits up. "Thought this could help."

"Your caf always helps," she tells him, taking the mug with a smile. Then she looks up at him and realizes his eyes can't smile back like they used to, and it all comes rushing back to her, that this isn't their usual bantering caf break, that they may never have another usual bantering caf break, another usual anything.

She lifts the mug to her lips with shaking hands and drinks. It's perfect—he always makes the best caf—and she savors the taste.

"Thank you," she says. Her eyes dart over him. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No," he shakes his head, "I was up."

She knows it's best if she doesn't ask why, so she just takes another sip.

"It's perfect," she says.

"Well, it took me a while," he says. "You might want to mop the galley floor."

"Oh, of course—" she moves to get up without thinking about it, but he puts a hand on her arm.

"Hera." There's pain in his voice, and it hits her as if it's her own. "That was a joke."

"Oh," she says, and conjures up a weak laugh. "Of course."

His smile fades, and he sighs.

"I know this isn't easy."

She sets the mug down and feigns ignorance. "What's not easy?"

"Hera." He levels the stare of the mask at her, and she sighs too.

"No. No, it's not."

She looks down to his hand on her arm and, with a breath of courage, twines her fingers with his own. He doesn't pull away.

"Have you found your way yet, love?" she asks.

His gaze goes down toward their hands.

"I'm getting there," he says.

She feels brave enough to give his hand squeeze. "Hurry up."

He chuckles, but there's pain in his posture, something holding him back.

* * *

One night, not quite a month later, her door slides open, and there he is, a shadow in a block of light.

"Kanan?" She's instantly awake. She sits up as he strides into the room. The door shuts behind him and he makes an inchoate sound, reaching for her, and she lets him pull her in. Then he's kissing her, and it's been so long since that's happened that Hera doesn't think about it, she just _reacts—_ her mouth opening to his own, her fingers in his hair, the shiver of her lekku, grazed by his hand.

He kisses her until she's breathless, but suddenly it starts to feel unfamiliar, rushed, like they're in a constant acceleration toward hyperspace. His touch doesn't feel tender but desperate, like he's trying to capture something that's gone. He's kissing her like he wants to block out the galaxy, like she's the last stop between him and some terrible destination and he wants to delay as much as he can.

Something deep within her knows that she's a means, not an end; and regardless of how much she's missed this, she won't let him get away with that.

"Kanan," she murmurs, but if he hears her, he doesn't properly interpret it. "Kanan," Hera says again, forcing firmness into her voice even though her body is watery with lust.

He pulls back and stares at her, and he looks so betrayed that she almost breaks. The mask is off, and meeting his eyes for the first time in months is like being doused with cold water. Her breath rattles in her lungs, and her voice is barely a whisper.

"Maybe…" She swallows a sob and touches his cheek, her fingers feather-light. "Maybe we shouldn't, love."

His eyes bore into her, and his lips slowly close, as the words sink in. What feels like minutes passes.

Then the tension drains from his body. His breath comes out in a ragged release, and he leans his forehead against her own, feeling so heavy that Hera worries he would fall forward without her.

She feels him trembling, pressed against her, and she wraps an arm around him, pulling him down. They lay back, curled together in her bunk, and she guides his head onto her chest. Exhaustion seeps off him, and she combs her fingers through his hair.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, his voice ragged with pain.

"Don't be sorry," she says. "Just be here."

He rises up to kiss her, softly, chastely, all too briefly, and brings his head to the pillow next to hers. She arranges herself so she's draped over him, and she doesn't know if she's trying to protect him or touch as much of him as she can, but whatever the reason, it's enough to carry them both into sleep.

He's gone in the morning. She gathers the sheets in her arms and presses her face into them, breathing in.

Later, the joke occurs to her that the Jedi Order owes her one, but now doesn't seem like the right time.

* * *

The next time they touch is when Ezra's stuck on Reklam Station, and she's clambering into the _Ghost,_ and alarms are going off in her head, and all she can think is _the kids the kids the kids_ ; and just like he always is when everything's going to hell, he's _there,_ in the copilot's chair, right where she needs him. Right where he belongs.

"Kanan?" His name falls from her lips before she can stop herself, and whether it's out of gratitude or surprise, she doesn't care—all that matters is that he's _here,_ _now_ , in a moment she's dreamed about for months.

"Ezra's in trouble," he says, matter-of-fact, as if nothing's changed. "Let's go."

 _Let's go_. There's an _us_ inherent in that simple sentence, substituted by an apostrophe but no less present, and she feels her adrenaline give way to a current of warmth. She wants to tell him a hundred things—that she's missed this, that she's missed him, that's she's glad he's okay—but there are lives at stake, and ships to get off the ground, and kids in danger, so she just smiles at him as she grabs the controls and says,

"It's good to have you back."

And it was.


End file.
